KVIFF review: Dissection Of An Incoherence in Crisis (2025)
Karloyv Vary International Film Festival
Future Frames – Generation NEXT of European Cinema
The truthfulness of the expression “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings” is often questionable, as toddlers do tend to bend the truth or invent things to get what they want, just like any given adult. They do possess another talent, though: knowing how to pick up their parents’ lines from conversations they are not supposed to witness or overhear, and then throw them in the air at the most inopportune moments. During a small competitive argument between three ten(ish)-year-old girls – twin sisters Laia (Laia Elejabarrieta) and Aran (Aran Elejabarrieta), and the daughter of their mother’s friend, Berta (Berty Vinyas) – one such sentence leaves the guest’s lips, further inflaming the complicated relationship between the adults.
It is intended to be a relaxing campervan holiday in nature for a family of four. While Artur (Francesc Marginet) and Laura (Cristina Terzi) get busy cooking cherry marmalade and lightly discussing history and art, the girls spend time at their favourite spot in the woods, where they are building colourful paper planes. The overall good mood is spoiled when Laura receives a phone call from her passive-aggressively condescending friend, Bárbara (Cristina Martínez), who tells her that she is on her way back to the camping site because a laptop was left behind. There is an immediate shift in Artur’s behaviour, which his wife is entirely unaware of in her cheerful chattering about this and that, and the moment Bárbara enters the door, the man’s good spirit is wholly gone.
It is less a matter of good dialogues and more of sharp, knife-like non-verbal tension that Sera exposes her characters to. It’s the subtlety of small gestures, snug smiles, or barely noticeable eye-rolling that steers us on the right path to finding out the cause and the consequence of a building conflict that could potentially explode into something much bigger if all adults in the room allow it. Just a few meters away, a similar drama takes place.
Nausica Sera’s short drama, “Dissection Of An Incoherence In Crisis,” is about the petty jealousy that consumes us when someone proves to be more knowledgeable about something we believe we excel in, even if that ‘expertise’ means finding the shorter way to the sculpture route. It is also about the ability to let go, accept the situation, and make peace, or the lack thereof. It’s also about cherries, and not just for the jam. In Catalan, as explained just before the end credits start rolling, “Mixing the cherries” means that someone is in charge of a matter and can direct it as they wish. So, who is in charge in this generationally dictated battle of the small and the big egos? The adults have the right words to fight it, and yet only two out of three feel like there is something to fight about. Kids, on the other hand, have a different measure of power, although they project entirely their parents’ behaviour into their games. Unlike the adults, they are allowed to express frustration differently.
It is a story of delicate complexity that examines our insecurities, both as children and as adults. Dissection Of An Incoherence In Crisis celebrates its world premiere within the frames of European Film Promotion’s (EFP) Future Frames at the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Original Title: Dissecció d’una incoherència en crisi
Country: Spain
Language: Catalan
Runtime: 16mm
Written| Directed by: Nausica Serra
Production company: ESCAC films
Cinematographer: Endika Gabilondo
Director|Screenplay: Nausica Serra
Dir. of Photography: Endika Gabilondo
Music: Carlota Dura, Marcos Horus
Sound: Carlota Dura
Editor: Carlos R. Haro
Art Director: Marta Vives
Producer: Carmen Rojo
Production: Escac Films
Cast: Francesc Marginet, Cristina Martínez, Cristina Terzi, Aran Elejabarrieta, Laia Elejabarrieta, Berta Vinyas
Contact: Escac Films, Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales
